Coffee Creamer

This beautiful recipe is from my sister! After listening to her say making coffee creamer at home was so easy and not believing it for years, it was a little funny to finally give her recipe a go and discover that she was not wrong. (Sorry, little sister! I should have believed!)

Cardamom Banana Bread

Once upon a time I lived where my books live, including the dear booklet of family recipes my paternal grandma helped make before she passed. I'm hoping one day to share that recipe here, but until that's possible I've been using my adaptation of Olga's great recipe. My main changes have been to make the recipe more aromatic and fragrant with the addition of the cardamom and orange blossom water, but the original is definitely worth a try too if you don't like either of those. Whatever you do, enjoy!

Cardamom Mug Cake

I'm not sure how I'm jumping on board this trend train so late, but here I am! My husband is away, but my cravings are not, so mug cakes have answered my need for a dessert without a bunch of tempting leftovers! This recipe is for my favorite version (so far!), but it's beautifully flexible - you could easily sub in cinnamon for the cardamom and coconut milk for the milk to get a very different, delicious cake! If you're late to the mug cake phenomenon, definitely give it a try!

Pumpkin Chickpea Stew

Can you guess what I have a lot of in my pantry right now? If you guessed chickpeas, you would be correct! What follows was loosely based on this recipe, but I took some liberties with the ingredients and preparation, as always. (I mean, come now, TWO cloves of garlic? Just 'cause you're white doesn't mean you have to embrace bland!)

Spiced Hot Chocolate

I've been making spiced hot chocolate for a few years now, so long that when I have friends over and they've (A) never heard of it and (B) love it I'm a little surprised since it's such an ordinary thing to me! I was reminded recently that it isn't ordinary to a lot of people though, so I thought I'd post a "recipe" (more like generic guidelines) for those of you who've never thought to spice up your hot cocoa a bit! Whether you're making hot chocolate from scratch or with packets this is a super easy way to take your hot chocolate to the next level!